This is a great way to get more developers on the bandwagon.
Hey, with more developers like Real producing software for Linux, our favourite free OS could almost end up as secure and free of adware, spyware and spam as Windows is!
The recent Windows versions were really not bad
You obviously have different standards to mine. But I did get something useful out of this thread. I've just downloaded RealAlternative.
No they're not, criminals are skewed towards the economically disadvantaged part of the population, for good reason.
Well, certain types of crime are skewed in that direction, it's true. On the other hand though, you've got the guys who ran Enron.
And that means more dumb people.
Damn, you almost had a half decent argument going there, and you had to go and blow it, didn't you?
What's the basis you have for saying that poor people are dumb? Half of the Indian subcontinent is poor, but they seem to be doing ok at taking American tech jobs...
But perhaps you think *that* makes them criminals as well?
However, a friend in a position to know tells me that the typical criminal is incredibly stupid.
I presume that your friend is referring to the typical criminal who is regularly apprehended? Unless he's actively involved with successful criminals, how would he know how stupid or otherwise they actually are?
This is one of the things that makes me laugh about law enforcement. When you hear them being interviewed on Cops or some such rubbish, they're always going on about how dumb these losers are -- not realizing that it's only that group who are dumber than they are able to catch. Epidemiologists refer to it as the clinician's bias. Because doctors only see sick people, they assume everyone is sick.
When they want more resources or additional powers though, they go on at great length about how cunning and sophisticated modern criminal organizations are, and how these new measures are essential to capture them and make the world safe for mom and apple pie.
The truth is that criminals are just like the regular population. Some are smart, some are dumb and some are just average.
Isn't have the research before walking into court the job of the IBM lawyers?
Yup. If you take a look on Groklaw, you'll note exactly what a fine job IBM's lawyers have been doing. The spring in their step is so big, they look like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.
Why should the IBM lawyers profit from your free research?
What gives *you* the impression that some of the smartest lawyers in the country would take the chance of allowing their cases to depend on a bunch of opinionated know-nothing dimwits who post to Slashdot?
Is that not the same idea behind the thinking 'Use the GPL so no company can make money off [my] code'?
Huh? What the fuck are you talking about? This makes no sense at all.
In fact, comments are probably the most copyrightable thing about software. Becuase they are free form and do not have to conform to a syntax (other than the methods of initiating and ending a comment) and because they don't have a functional purpose, they are purely expressive. Copyright protects original works of expression.
That's absolutely true, but think about how copyright is enforced? Damages are awarded for the value of the breach.
The fact is that the loss I'd cause to you by copying your comments would be a big fat zero. So while you're technically correct, the real-world legal implications have little or no significance.
Are all Parmesean, Muenster, Feta, etc. cheeses that come from Wisconsin to be labelled "American Cheese" or "Wisconsin Cheese?" How would you tell them apart?
Well, to perfectly honest, I don't think you could sell any of these products in Europe -- but if you wanted to try, you could call them Parmesan-style, Feta-style, etc. with a large label that read 'Made in Wisconsin'. Nobody would have any objection to that.
Naturally, though, I'm sure you don't see it that way, what with all of your claims that American goods are "inferior products."
I'm not making any such claim. If I wanted a good Monterey Jack cheddar, I'd expect it to be made in the good old USA. I've never come across anything comparable anywhere else. If I wanted Maple Syrup, I'd be looking for something that came from real Maple trees in Maine or Canada. I wouldn't want something made from sugar beet in El Salvador. Again, it has nothing to do with protectionism and everything to do with clear labelling of the product.
Are you genuinely arguing that Basmati rice that wasn't grown on Indian soil cannot have that name?
If it wasn't grown in the Himalayas, it isn't Basmati rice. However, you miss my point, which is that US patent law means that not even that can describe itself as Basmati rice in the USA, because the name has been reserved for a patented strain grown in Buttfuck, Idaho.
Cheesemaking is a recipe.
It's nothing of the sort. Great cheeses are a product of both the method and the local ecology. The grass that the animals eat, the water that they drink, the type of beasts in the herd all play some part in producing the distinctive flavours associated with classic cheeses.
Of course, given that you don't appreciate that, I can see why you think there's no difference between one of the great French or Italian cheeses made by craftsmen on a family smallholding, and something made in a factory in Wisconsin. You're clearly the kind of person who thinks that Espresso is a drink that's made with two heaped spoonfuls of Maxwell House instant coffee.
Now, if someone could explain Harvey's Bristol Creme I'd be grateful.
Bristol is an English port that was the place of entry for many of the imported wines. Hence lots of wine merchants set up shop there.
Harveys was one such wine merchant. Established over 150 years ago, they began to blend some wines to achieve a greater degree of consistency in their product. Harveys Bristol Creme is the name they gave to one such blend made of fortified wines from Jerez (Sherry.)
and americans love to laugh at europeans (EU) with their stupid and blatantly anticompetitive "named origin" rules that tolerate such bullshit.
You mean as opposed to Americans who take out a patent a variety of rice and then register the trademark 'Basmati', even though this particular rice has been traditionally associated with a strain that grows in the Himalayas for the last few hundred years?
The reality is that there's nothing protectionist about it. You're absolutely free to sell as much of your 'American Cheese' in Europe as you like (bwahahahahah.) You just can't call it Camenbert. This strategy has the advantage of providing consumers with an accurate description of the goods being sold. The alternative lays the way open to any attempt to rip off both producers and consumers by fraudulent and deceptive practices -- and still seeks protectionism for your inferior products -- as in the case of your BasNasty rice.
However, I do understand that large numbers of Americans think that consumers shouldn't have any protection from rapacious and deceptive trade practices -- which is probably why so much spam originates from your shores.
Besides, Linux can be replaced without changing the whole system. That would take a while (although it already "works", see Hurd), so I think the cute Daemon would be the answer.
And you think this despite the fact that SCO has already said that it plans on going after the various BSD's next?
It seems to me that if they can prevail with Linux (and I don't think for a moment that they can), then they'd prevail with their claims against BSD as well.
They are if you live Buttfuck, Nebraska or in your mom's basement. They aren't if you live in London or New York and have ten years worth of mortgage payments in equity.
Freebasing is a long forgotten art.
By the time you've developed a taste for it, you'll find that whipping up a few rocks with bicarb in the microwave achieves exactly the same effects. And there's nothing at all artful about spending a weekend picking your face, pulling your hair out or crawling around the carpet looking for that last tiny piece of rock that you swore you'd dropped.
According to the DSM IV, there is no caffeine dependence or abuse.
And yet if you read the responses to this question, you'd get the impression that the world is filled with recovering caffiene addicts, all of whom quit the evil stuff just prior to taking up mugging old ladies to feed their habits.
by switching to crack which, he claimed, was easier to quit
It's easier to quit in the sense that you'll hit rock bottom a damn sight easier. I've known lots of people who were able to manage for many, many years as functional heroin addicts, but as soon as they started smoking crack, their lives turned to absolute shit.
They either ended up in jail, dead or drug free. I suppose that counts as 'easier to quit', but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
No it isn't. Very real physiological changes take place in the Central Nervous System and in the brain. Do a Google search for the work of, oh, someone like Mary Jean Kreek.
I've never been addicted to anything and neither has my wife.
Ah yes. The *other* Slashdot effect. I know nothing at all about this subject, but I'm damned if I'm not going to post my ill-informed views anyway.
All things considered, the positive effects of cocaine outweigh nicotine by a mile
Let me guess -- you haven't actually been around a lot of hard core cocaine users have you? Still at that honeymoon phase perhaps?
and it wouldn't be all that much more expensive
Yup, definitely still at that honeymoon phase -- snorting a quarter gram a week or so isnt that expensive. Lets just hope you get bored before you freebase all the equity in your house as a number of my friends have. Then we'll see how expensive you think it is...
I don't think so. Your introduction of an additional reason doesn't invalidate my original reason. In fact, the most obvious reason for celebrities to sue for libel in the UK is because they don't suffer from a lesser protection as a 'public figure', and consequently comment by the media has a much lower bar to reach to be judged defamatory.
In the UK, it is the person defending the libel action that has the burden of proof thrust upon them
And I actually think that's the correct way to do things. You make the claim, the onus *should* be on you to prove that it's true. I shouldn't have to spend time and money defending myself from allegations that are completely invented.
But libel isn't the only constraint on your so-called freedom of speech. The British media has consistently called the government to account over the mad cow disease question. In the USA, as soon as Oprah raises questions about the potential safety of American beef, she's hauled into court by a bunch of cattlemen, costing her millions of dollars to defend herself, with the subsequent of a complete lack of discussion of the issue in your media for fear of similar legal actions.
I can see how somebody should be able to sue for damaging a person's reputation, but damaging the reputation of a whole industry -- an industry that employs hoardes of lobbyists and PR people -- seems to me to be a wholly ridiculous law and completely unjustifiable in any democratic society.
If that's your idea of 'freedom', you can keep it.
There is one context in which it a true statement can be libellous in the UK though, where it may not be in the USA.
If I were to say that 'Joe Soap claims that Prince Charles regularly buggers the butler', that can be both strictly true (in that Joe Soap really did make that claim) but is simultaneously libelous, because it damages Prince Charles' reputation. The truth is not a defence in such a situation because the original statement was defamatory, and repeating the offence is similarly actionable. Even if nobody has ever sued Joe Soap (say, because he's got no money to recover damages from), you'd get the same sort of sanctions against you as you would have done if you'd committed the original libel.
I think that the situation is slightly different in the USA because there, the media may well be able to report such a story with impunity -- which is why US celebrities always seem to bring their libel actions in the British courts.
If I claimed that George Bush sucked Colin Powell's cock while Karl Rove buttbanged him, the newspapers would be free to report my claims, if there was any reason to: "Random Guy Accuses President of Rampant Homosexuality!"
And I'm happy to agree that the constitutional protections that the US media enjoys in this regard are far superior to those that we have here in the UK.
In practice though, your media simply operates under a different set of constraints, where corporate power and religious moralism controls the flow of information in the public domain, rather than a fear of the law.
While I envy you your constitutional protections, I don't envy you your media in the least.
In fact, the media can be as bland and insipid as they want, but it doesn't lessen my freedom of speech.
Don't go confusing your own freedom of speech with that of your media. While the National Enquirer may be able to report your allegations of George W. Bush's homosexual gang bang with impunity, you'd still be liable to a libel suit in exactly the same way that someone would be here in the UK.
Even though you may have those additional constitutional protections, nowhere is freedom of speech absolute.
Like when you try and call the Prince gay in a newspaper.
Do try and get it right, won't you? If you lived in the UK and watched the Graham Norton show, you'd here a comedian on prime time TV explicitly insinuating on an almost nightly basis that Prince Edward is gay. Nobody gives a shit about that in the least.
The allegation that was suppressed wasn't that Prince Charles was gay, but rather that a servant claimed that he witnessed him sodomizing another servant. It wasn't surpressed because you can't say such things in general. It was surpressed because it was libellous and untrue.
Incidentally, how much coverage have you seen in the mainstream US news media of George W. Bush's cocaine use? Or his illustrious military record?
Thought not. Can you say 'hypocrite'?
To a US point of view those restrictions are abhorrent.
Oh, I think you'll find that you have libel laws in the United States as well. Try claiming that you've witnessed one of your politicians buggering another man sometime (particularly if it isn't true, but even if it is) and see how far you get without a subpoena landing on your doormat?
While the US may have some nice constitutional protections on free speech that are lacking in other countries, the reality is that you actually have *less* free speech because you have a media oligopoly that only represents the views and interests of the advertisers and is terrified of upsetting the religious right. As a consequence, for all of your much lauded free speech, the USA actually has the blandest, most insipid media coverage in the Western world.
But I know that that's precisely the sort of 'free speech' that the USA is comfortable with. The freedom to spam. The freedom to sell you shit that you neither want nor need. And the freedom to insist on conformity.
When your mainstream media presents a wide range of genuinely challenging ideas and opinions, and doesn't freak out at the prospect of upsetting the religious right by showing a live titty on the tv, then you'll have the right to lecture the rest of us about freedom. Until that point though, we'll continue to view you as just another deluded sap.
Slashdot Mirror
Just for kicks, after I fucked her (and shat in her purse) I kicked her out as well
Wow, it seems that Led Zeppelin's drummer, John Bonham reads Slashdot!
This is a great way to get more developers on the bandwagon.
Hey, with more developers like Real producing software for Linux, our favourite free OS could almost end up as secure and free of adware, spyware and spam as Windows is!
The recent Windows versions were really not bad
You obviously have different standards to mine. But I did get something useful out of this thread. I've just downloaded RealAlternative.
Thanks, guys.
If I had a dollar for every time I downloaded realplayer and used biteme@here.com ....
Ah. My own preferred account details are kissmy@ass.com. I'm always astonished that I can still register using this address.
No they're not, criminals are skewed towards the economically disadvantaged part of the population, for good reason.
Well, certain types of crime are skewed in that direction, it's true. On the other hand though, you've got the guys who ran Enron.
And that means more dumb people.
Damn, you almost had a half decent argument going there, and you had to go and blow it, didn't you?
What's the basis you have for saying that poor people are dumb? Half of the Indian subcontinent is poor, but they seem to be doing ok at taking American tech jobs...
But perhaps you think *that* makes them criminals as well?
However, a friend in a position to know tells me that the typical criminal is incredibly stupid.
I presume that your friend is referring to the typical criminal who is regularly apprehended? Unless he's actively involved with successful criminals, how would he know how stupid or otherwise they actually are?
This is one of the things that makes me laugh about law enforcement. When you hear them being interviewed on Cops or some such rubbish, they're always going on about how dumb these losers are -- not realizing that it's only that group who are dumber than they are able to catch. Epidemiologists refer to it as the clinician's bias. Because doctors only see sick people, they assume everyone is sick.
When they want more resources or additional powers though, they go on at great length about how cunning and sophisticated modern criminal organizations are, and how these new measures are essential to capture them and make the world safe for mom and apple pie.
The truth is that criminals are just like the regular population. Some are smart, some are dumb and some are just average.
There are minimums.
Which would be more than outweighed by the costs -- in your time alone, let alone attorneys costs, court fees, etc. -- of bringing any such action.
Isn't have the research before walking into court the job of the IBM lawyers?
Yup. If you take a look on Groklaw, you'll note exactly what a fine job IBM's lawyers have been doing. The spring in their step is so big, they look like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.
Why should the IBM lawyers profit from your free research?
What gives *you* the impression that some of the smartest lawyers in the country would take the chance of allowing their cases to depend on a bunch of opinionated know-nothing dimwits who post to Slashdot?
Is that not the same idea behind the thinking 'Use the GPL so no company can make money off [my] code'?
Huh? What the fuck are you talking about? This makes no sense at all.
In fact, comments are probably the most copyrightable thing about software. Becuase they are free form and do not have to conform to a syntax (other than the methods of initiating and ending a comment) and because they don't have a functional purpose, they are purely expressive. Copyright protects original works of expression.
That's absolutely true, but think about how copyright is enforced? Damages are awarded for the value of the breach.
The fact is that the loss I'd cause to you by copying your comments would be a big fat zero. So while you're technically correct, the real-world legal implications have little or no significance.
IANAL, etc.
barring hirsute pr0n and other acts of barbarism
Come on, there's no need to pretend with us. You're among friends here.
The truth is, most people haven't ever even *seen* hirsute pr0n, and you obviously didn't pick the name 'beaverfever' for no reason...
Yeah. With Linux, it would take a full week, not some measly 11 hours.
I can see how it might if you were retarded and couldnt read a man page.
You know, seeing as setting the screen resolution alone takes 2 hours, and it gets worse from there...
Let me guess, you've never actually even *seen* a Linux install, have you? You're just going by what you've read from other trolls...
Are all Parmesean, Muenster, Feta, etc. cheeses that come from Wisconsin to be labelled "American Cheese" or "Wisconsin Cheese?" How would you tell them apart?
Well, to perfectly honest, I don't think you could sell any of these products in Europe -- but if you wanted to try, you could call them Parmesan-style, Feta-style, etc. with a large label that read 'Made in Wisconsin'. Nobody would have any objection to that.
Naturally, though, I'm sure you don't see it that way, what with all of your claims that American goods are "inferior products."
I'm not making any such claim. If I wanted a good Monterey Jack cheddar, I'd expect it to be made in the good old USA. I've never come across anything comparable anywhere else. If I wanted Maple Syrup, I'd be looking for something that came from real Maple trees in Maine or Canada. I wouldn't want something made from sugar beet in El Salvador. Again, it has nothing to do with protectionism and everything to do with clear labelling of the product.
Are you genuinely arguing that Basmati rice that wasn't grown on Indian soil cannot have that name?
If it wasn't grown in the Himalayas, it isn't Basmati rice. However, you miss my point, which is that US patent law means that not even that can describe itself as Basmati rice in the USA, because the name has been reserved for a patented strain grown in Buttfuck, Idaho.
Cheesemaking is a recipe.
It's nothing of the sort. Great cheeses are a product of both the method and the local ecology. The grass that the animals eat, the water that they drink, the type of beasts in the herd all play some part in producing the distinctive flavours associated with classic cheeses.
Of course, given that you don't appreciate that, I can see why you think there's no difference between one of the great French or Italian cheeses made by craftsmen on a family smallholding, and something made in a factory in Wisconsin. You're clearly the kind of person who thinks that Espresso is a drink that's made with two heaped spoonfuls of Maxwell House instant coffee.
Now, if someone could explain Harvey's Bristol Creme I'd be grateful.
Bristol is an English port that was the place of entry for many of the imported wines. Hence lots of wine merchants set up shop there.
Harveys was one such wine merchant. Established over 150 years ago, they began to blend some wines to achieve a greater degree of consistency in their product. Harveys Bristol Creme is the name they gave to one such blend made of fortified wines from Jerez (Sherry.)
and americans love to laugh at europeans (EU) with their stupid and blatantly anticompetitive "named origin" rules that tolerate such bullshit.
You mean as opposed to Americans who take out a patent a variety of rice and then register the trademark 'Basmati', even though this particular rice has been traditionally associated with a strain that grows in the Himalayas for the last few hundred years?
The reality is that there's nothing protectionist about it. You're absolutely free to sell as much of your 'American Cheese' in Europe as you like (bwahahahahah.) You just can't call it Camenbert. This strategy has the advantage of providing consumers with an accurate description of the goods being sold. The alternative lays the way open to any attempt to rip off both producers and consumers by fraudulent and deceptive practices -- and still seeks protectionism for your inferior products -- as in the case of your BasNasty rice.
However, I do understand that large numbers of Americans think that consumers shouldn't have any protection from rapacious and deceptive trade practices -- which is probably why so much spam originates from your shores.
Beer comes in crates. Wine comes in cases.
Clearly all of these champagne dealers have got it wrong and you alone have it right.
Some wine even comes in boxes!
Besides, Linux can be replaced without changing the whole system. That would take a while (although it already "works", see Hurd), so I think the cute Daemon would be the answer.
And you think this despite the fact that SCO has already said that it plans on going after the various BSD's next?
It seems to me that if they can prevail with Linux (and I don't think for a moment that they can), then they'd prevail with their claims against BSD as well.
Anecdotal self-righteousness and a penchant for spouting war-on-drugs propaganda?
On the contrary, I've worked in drugs treatment and research for twenty years and have been an activist for legalization the whole time.
I've also probably taken more drugs than you've had hot dinners. That doesn't stop me pointing out the very real risks associated with cocaine use.
Houses are cheap.
They are if you live Buttfuck, Nebraska or in your mom's basement. They aren't if you live in London or New York and have ten years worth of mortgage payments in equity.
Freebasing is a long forgotten art.
By the time you've developed a taste for it, you'll find that whipping up a few rocks with bicarb in the microwave achieves exactly the same effects. And there's nothing at all artful about spending a weekend picking your face, pulling your hair out or crawling around the carpet looking for that last tiny piece of rock that you swore you'd dropped.
According to the DSM IV, there is no caffeine dependence or abuse.
And yet if you read the responses to this question, you'd get the impression that the world is filled with recovering caffiene addicts, all of whom quit the evil stuff just prior to taking up mugging old ladies to feed their habits.
Curious that, isn't it?
by switching to crack which, he claimed, was easier to quit
It's easier to quit in the sense that you'll hit rock bottom a damn sight easier. I've known lots of people who were able to manage for many, many years as functional heroin addicts, but as soon as they started smoking crack, their lives turned to absolute shit.
They either ended up in jail, dead or drug free. I suppose that counts as 'easier to quit', but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Addiction is all in the mind.
No it isn't. Very real physiological changes take place in the Central Nervous System and in the brain. Do a Google search for the work of, oh, someone like Mary Jean Kreek.
I've never been addicted to anything and neither has my wife.
Ah yes. The *other* Slashdot effect. I know nothing at all about this subject, but I'm damned if I'm not going to post my ill-informed views anyway.
All things considered, the positive effects of cocaine outweigh nicotine by a mile
Let me guess -- you haven't actually been around a lot of hard core cocaine users have you? Still at that honeymoon phase perhaps?
and it wouldn't be all that much more expensive
Yup, definitely still at that honeymoon phase -- snorting a quarter gram a week or so isnt that expensive. Lets just hope you get bored before you freebase all the equity in your house as a number of my friends have. Then we'll see how expensive you think it is...
You've still got it wrong.
I don't think so. Your introduction of an additional reason doesn't invalidate my original reason. In fact, the most obvious reason for celebrities to sue for libel in the UK is because they don't suffer from a lesser protection as a 'public figure', and consequently comment by the media has a much lower bar to reach to be judged defamatory.
In the UK, it is the person defending the libel action that has the burden of proof thrust upon them
And I actually think that's the correct way to do things. You make the claim, the onus *should* be on you to prove that it's true. I shouldn't have to spend time and money defending myself from allegations that are completely invented.
But libel isn't the only constraint on your so-called freedom of speech. The British media has consistently called the government to account over the mad cow disease question. In the USA, as soon as Oprah raises questions about the potential safety of American beef, she's hauled into court by a bunch of cattlemen, costing her millions of dollars to defend herself, with the subsequent of a complete lack of discussion of the issue in your media for fear of similar legal actions.
I can see how somebody should be able to sue for damaging a person's reputation, but damaging the reputation of a whole industry -- an industry that employs hoardes of lobbyists and PR people -- seems to me to be a wholly ridiculous law and completely unjustifiable in any democratic society.
If that's your idea of 'freedom', you can keep it.
There is one context in which it a true statement can be libellous in the UK though, where it may not be in the USA.
If I were to say that 'Joe Soap claims that Prince Charles regularly buggers the butler', that can be both strictly true (in that Joe Soap really did make that claim) but is simultaneously libelous, because it damages Prince Charles' reputation. The truth is not a defence in such a situation because the original statement was defamatory, and repeating the offence is similarly actionable. Even if nobody has ever sued Joe Soap (say, because he's got no money to recover damages from), you'd get the same sort of sanctions against you as you would have done if you'd committed the original libel.
I think that the situation is slightly different in the USA because there, the media may well be able to report such a story with impunity -- which is why US celebrities always seem to bring their libel actions in the British courts.
If I claimed that George Bush sucked Colin Powell's cock while Karl Rove buttbanged him, the newspapers would be free to report my claims, if there was any reason to: "Random Guy Accuses President of Rampant Homosexuality!"
And I'm happy to agree that the constitutional protections that the US media enjoys in this regard are far superior to those that we have here in the UK.
In practice though, your media simply operates under a different set of constraints, where corporate power and religious moralism controls the flow of information in the public domain, rather than a fear of the law.
While I envy you your constitutional protections, I don't envy you your media in the least.
In fact, the media can be as bland and insipid as they want, but it doesn't lessen my freedom of speech.
Don't go confusing your own freedom of speech with that of your media. While the National Enquirer may be able to report your allegations of George W. Bush's homosexual gang bang with impunity, you'd still be liable to a libel suit in exactly the same way that someone would be here in the UK.
Even though you may have those additional constitutional protections, nowhere is freedom of speech absolute.
Like when you try and call the Prince gay in a newspaper.
Do try and get it right, won't you? If you lived in the UK and watched the Graham Norton show, you'd here a comedian on prime time TV explicitly insinuating on an almost nightly basis that Prince Edward is gay. Nobody gives a shit about that in the least.
The allegation that was suppressed wasn't that Prince Charles was gay, but rather that a servant claimed that he witnessed him sodomizing another servant. It wasn't surpressed because you can't say such things in general. It was surpressed because it was libellous and untrue.
Incidentally, how much coverage have you seen in the mainstream US news media of George W. Bush's cocaine use? Or his illustrious military record?
Thought not. Can you say 'hypocrite'?
To a US point of view those restrictions are abhorrent.
Oh, I think you'll find that you have libel laws in the United States as well. Try claiming that you've witnessed one of your politicians buggering another man sometime (particularly if it isn't true, but even if it is) and see how far you get without a subpoena landing on your doormat?
While the US may have some nice constitutional protections on free speech that are lacking in other countries, the reality is that you actually have *less* free speech because you have a media oligopoly that only represents the views and interests of the advertisers and is terrified of upsetting the religious right. As a consequence, for all of your much lauded free speech, the USA actually has the blandest, most insipid media coverage in the Western world.
But I know that that's precisely the sort of 'free speech' that the USA is comfortable with. The freedom to spam. The freedom to sell you shit that you neither want nor need. And the freedom to insist on conformity.
When your mainstream media presents a wide range of genuinely challenging ideas and opinions, and doesn't freak out at the prospect of upsetting the religious right by showing a live titty on the tv, then you'll have the right to lecture the rest of us about freedom. Until that point though, we'll continue to view you as just another deluded sap.